Data Donation Workshop 24.03 - 26.03.2025 @ IfKW, LMU Munich

These are the data and materials for the workshop “Collecting and Analyzing WhatsApp Data Donations”. It consists of both a presentation and some hands-on-sessions to code along.

The workshop builds both on the WhatsR R-package (https://github.com/gesiscss/WhatsR) and the ChatDashboard R-shiny webapp (https://github.com/gesiscss/ChatDashboard) for data donations.

Goal: Semi-ineractive Walk-through of the process for preprocessing, collecting, and analyzing donated WhatsApp Chat Log data.

Schedule

Time	Block
09:00 - 09:15	Presentation: Overview of WhatsApp Chat Log Data
09:15 - 09:45	Code along: Exporting & Parsing WhatsApp Chat Log Data
09:45 - 09:55	Presentation: Anonymization & Consent Checking
09:55 - 10:10	Code along: Anonymization & Consent Checking
10:10 - 10:20	Presentation: ChatDashboard for Data Donation Studies
10:20 - 10:45	Code along: Installing and adapting ChatDashboard
10:45 - 11:00	Discussion, Q&A

Installing System Dependencies

We will use some R-packages that rely on specific system dependencies that you might need to install manually if your are using Linux or MacOS

Windows

If you are using Windows, you should not have to install any system dependencies manually

Linux

This should be run in the Terminal, not RStudio

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
  libxml2-dev \
  libpng-dev \
  libsodium-dev \
  libcurl4-openssl-dev \
  libmagick++-dev \
  libharfbuzz-dev \
  libfribidi-dev \
  libjpeg-dev \
  default-jre \
  default-jdk \
  gfortran \
  libblas-dev \
  liblapack-dev \
  libgdal-dev

MacOS

This should be run in the Terminal, not RStudio

brew update
brew install \
  libxml2 \
  libpng \
  libsodium \
  curl \
  imagemagick \
  harfbuzz \
  fribidi \
  jpeg \
  gcc \
  openblas \
  lapack \
  gdal

# Install Java (both JRE and JDK) using Homebrew Cask:
brew install --cask temurin

Installing R Packages

ChatDashboard uses several additional R-packages on top of WhatsR to display data, make it interactive, and ensure encryption. Let’s install these;

# Installing WhatsR package from GitHub
library(devtools)
devtools::install_github("gesiscss/WhatsR")

# Installing ChatDashboard Dependencies
Chatdashboard_dep <- c("anytime",
                       "crosstalk",
                       "cyphr",
                       "digest",
                       "DT",
                       "fontawesome",
                       "ggplot2",
                       "ggwordcloud",
                       "keyring",
                       "readODS",
                       "rsconnect",
                       "shiny",
                       "shinymanager",
                       "shinythemes",
                       "shinyjs",
                       "shinyalert",
                       "shinyTime",
                       "shinyWidgets",
                       "slickR",
                       "waiter",
                       "fs")
                       
Chatdashboard_new <- Chatdashboard_dep[!(Chatdashboard_dep %in% installed.packages()[,"Package"])]
if(length(Chatdashboard_new)) install.packages(Chatdashboard_new)

Whatsapp Chat Logs

To fully participate in the workshop, participants need WhatsApp chat logs to analyze. these can be obtained in different ways:

Export your own chat log

We recommend to export the chat files using the without media option and by sending it to a private Email address.

Android

iOS

Create a dummy chat log file

Participants can also use the WhatsR package to create a dummy chat log file themselves

# loading library
library(WhatsR)

# checking documentation
??create_chatlog

# creating a dummy chat log
create_chatlog()

Use the Example Chat logs provided in this repo

This repository contains multiple pre-generated example chat log files that can be used as well. Participants can find them in the data folder.